"Casualty agnosticism"

Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe reports on a new study by the Project on Defense Alternatives (PDA), which argues that the Pentagon's obfuscation of civilian casualties inflicted by its military campaigns has damaged US credibility, made it more difficult to predict the outcome of armed conflicts, and distorted the ability of the American populace to make informed decisions about whether it is prudent to resort to force in the face of a true threat.

The Globe elaborates:

"Distortion of the civilian casualty issue can only serve to impede the sober assessment of US policy, policy options, and their consequences," states a draft copy of the report, provided to the Globe. "It is antithetical both to well-informed public debate and to sensible policy making."

Based on a review of thousands of news articles and other publicly available materials, the report estimates that 18,000 combatants and civilians were killed during the course of the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, about one-third -- 6,000 -- were civilians. A Pentagon official, who said he had not yet read the full report, maintained that the Pentagon is unable to tally civilian casualties and has no need to.

"Our efforts focus on defeating enemy forces, so we never target civilians and have no reason to count such unintended deaths," said the official, who asked not to be identified. "It is at best extremely difficult to estimate casualty figures, and we cannot say with any certainty how many civilians have been killed . . .

"Even one innocent death is a sad fact, and something we sincerely regret."

As for Iraq, he added, "The responsibility for every death in Iraq, be it soldier or civilian, Iraqi, American, British, or others, lies with Saddam Hussein, who chose war over complying with UN resolutions."

I find it almost cute that the Pentagoners still have the audacity to break out the "it's Saddam's fault" excuse after all these many months of lying about Iraq's capabilities. They must think the public is stupid or ignorant; perhaps, both.